


La Scommessa Toscana: 1

by AVegetarianCannibal



Series: Slice of Life [17]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Engagement, Italy, M/M, tuscany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:09:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25192954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal
Summary: They're engaged. They're perpetually hot for each other. They place a wager to see if they can remain chaste until the wedding.Everything goes deliciously wrong.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Slice of Life [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/994764
Comments: 22
Kudos: 145





	La Scommessa Toscana: 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shukkhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shukkhy/gifts).



> Follows immediately after the "Prima di Firenze" chapter in the Slice of Life series. The next part, from Hannibal's point of view, will follow (hopefully) soon. See end notes for chapter title translations.

**_La prima parte: Will_ **

  


Will wakes with the fragrance of the crushed wisteria blossoms lingering on his skin and in his hair. His wrists are still stained with the green of the vines. He smiles into his pillow and curls his thumb across his palm to touch the engagement ring circling his finger. The Damascus steel is a small but solid and reassuring presence.

He reaches under the sheets, seeking out Hannibal’s hand so he can feel the matching ring that’s there.

“Metal calling out to metal,” Hannibal says, his voice muffled and sleepy. “Forged from the same cluster of molecules, heated in the same fire, longing to be together again.”

Will brings Hannibal’s hand to his lips and places a gentle kiss on the ring. “I think it would surprise anyone who didn’t know you that your sentimentality, for all its poetry, is genuine.”

“Those who _do_ know me, as well,” Hannibal says. He turns Will’s hand over so he can return the kiss. “I do wish you’d let us wear the other bands. The sharp little blade hidden within the ring is so clever and so beautiful—much like its designer.”

Will shifts onto his side so he can look at Hannibal. “Wedding bands are for the wedding.” 

“I had no idea you were such a traditionalist,” Hannibal says. He sighs with exaggerated disappointment.

Will rolls his eyes. “Says the man who waited for me to formally propose and who, by the way, wants a church wedding with flowers and music by Bach. What’s next? Chastity until we take our vows?”

Hannibal laces their fingers together. “Of course not. I wouldn’t wish to torture you so, Will. The cruelties of our past interactions are behind us.”

Will opens his mouth, too stunned for a moment to react, and then lets out a sharp, incredulous laugh. Cephi grumbles from her bed on the floor beside them, annoyed to have been disturbed from her sleep.

Will tugs on Hannibal’s hand. “Are you saying it would be harder for _me_ to give up sex than it would be for _you_?”

“Oh, no, no,” Hannibal says in a hurry. “It would only be difficult for _you_ to give up sex with _me_.”

Will laughs some more and gives Hannibal a playful shove. “Oh my God! You really do think you have a dick that shoots magic!”

“I must have _something_ ,” Hannibal says. He returns the shove and smoothly pins Will down with one leg. He sits up and straddles Will’s hips. “As I recall, when I was away on business in Santiago, you bought a plane ticket just so we could make love for an afternoon.”

Will bucks his hips hard enough to unseat Hannibal, then climbs on top of him, pinning him chest to chest against the bed. His muscles are stiff and sore from their acrobatic use of the pergola, but not unpleasantly so, and certainly not to the point of stopping him wrestling Hannibal a bit.

“You didn’t object,” he reminds Hannibal.

“You were already in my room,” Hannibal says. He wriggles beneath Will without really trying to get away. “There was no point in turning you out by then, as needy as you were.”

“Needy!” Will repeats. “ _I’m_ the needy one? You watch me sleep and write poems about my thighs like some kind of horny Ogden Nash!”

Hannibal gasps, plainly wounded. “Nash! Ogden Nash! How dare you, you—you utter _American_!”

Will nearly chokes on his own laughter as Hannibal grabs him in a clench about the waist, pinning his arms to his sides before lavishing his throat with little growls and kisses. His muscles protest again but it’s a small discomfort. Knowing that Hannibal wants him… _always_ wants him so passionately gives him a much greater measure of satisfaction.

A diabolical idea occurs to him, and the words escape his lips before he’s had a chance to really think it through.

“Care to make a wager of it?”

Hannibal pauses without lifting his head. “Of what?”

“Our prenuptial chastity,” Will says. “Whoever can resist the other the longest, wins.”

Now Hannibal looks at him. “Wins what?” 

“Whoever resists the longest,” Will says, thinking it out word by word, “wins the lifelong... and precious knowledge... that he won.”

Hannibal purses his lips, mulling it over. “Do I—or whoever wins—get to lord it over you—or whomever loses—for the entirety of the marriage?”

Will, feeling confident, shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

Hannibal’s eyes sparkle like whiskey in sunlight. God, his hair is deliciously tousled and his cheeks are pink with excitement. He’s dangerously sexy, and Will feels his body respond like the traitorous thing that it is. He thrusts his growing erection against Hannibal’s belly.

“Shall we start at midnight tonight?” he asks.

Hannibal reaches a hand between his legs and gives his cock a firm squeeze. “If you insist…”

Before Hannibal can resume raining kisses down upon him, though, another canine grumble comes from the floor by the foot of the bed. This time, it’s louder.

Will just manages to turn his head enough to see Cephi looking at him with a demanding expression. The tip of her tail wags at high speed in a sure sign of agitation. Now that they’ve awakened her so rudely, she insists on being taken for her morning walk.

Hannibal sighs. “Does our girl need one of us to take her out?”

“You know she’s not above peeing on our clothes when we keep her waiting,” Will says.

“It’s deleterious to her renal health to hold it in,” Hannibal says, ever the doctor and Cephi apologist. He climbs out of bed. “I’ll take her. I’m not certain you could get your trousers on in that state.”

Will glances down the length of his body to his cock, now standing at full attention. He reaches behind his head for a pillow and tosses it at Hannibal, who easily ducks out of the way.

“We can go ahead and start the wager now,” Will says, regretting it as soon as the words are out. Well, no turning back now. “What do you say?”

“I’m amenable,” Hannibal says as he unloops Cephi’s lead from the bedpost. “I’d shake hands with you to seal the deal, but I’m afraid my sensuous touch might send you over the edge.”

Will throws another pillow at him. “Oh, just go walk the dog, Ogden!”

* * *

It’s not long before Will realizes they haven’t defined the parameters of the wager very well. Or at all, really. Are they still going to sleep in the same bed at night? Are they allowed to jerk off or must they refrain from all forms of sexual release? Is it considered cheating to make it harder for Hannibal to resist him? Most importantly, is cheating forbidden? If he’s not going to draw the line at cannibalism, then certainly there’s no sense in getting squeamish at stacking the deck in his favor.

While Hannibal is out walking Cephi, Will rolls himself out of bed and shuffles into the bathroom for a shower. Knowing Hannibal, he’ll be taking their girl to one of the nearby bakeries for breakfast and stopping to accept compliments from the Italian grannies at the market over how precious Cephi is. In other words, there’s no need to rush.

If people were to be surprised by Hannibal’s sentimentality, then they would be equally surprised by the extent of Will’s personal grooming abilities. He knows he has in the past given the impression that he’s unaware of matters concerning his hair, and that any stylishness atop his head was premeditated by a barber rather than by his own design. But the dirty truth is that he knows _precisely_ how to bring out the curl in his hair with wheat protein shampoos and cold water rinses, and he knows that the tighter his ringlets, the lustier Hannibal becomes. He washes his pubic hair with some of his special shampoo, as well, just for good measure.

He resists touching his dick too much in the shower, as tempting as it is to make himself come. It’s less out of a concern for the nebulous rules of their wager and more about maintaining a certain... _aesthetic_.

After his shower, he bends at the waist and carefully sponges the excess water out of his hair with a small towel. He avoids scrubbing at his head, lest he break up the curls and send them into a state of amorphous frizz. His only other duty to hygiene is to press the smallest dots of Hannibal’s own summer perfume oil to his armpits, neck, and the underside of his balls. It smells of lemongrass and smoked wood and beach sand that’s been searing under the afternoon sun. It doesn’t accentuate his own natural scent the way it does Hannibal’s, but he knows Hannibal will appreciate it.

Moving on to the closet, he ponders his choices. The obvious thing—perhaps _too_ obvious—would be to wear one of Hannibal’s dress shirts and nothing else. He gives it a few moments of consideration, but ultimately realizes that the shirttails would hide his ass from view.

He digs around in the bureau for the old jeans shorts he typically wears for working around the house and mostly only because Hannibal has a longstanding “sexy plumber” fantasy that Will likes to fulfill now and then . The fact that he’s already seduced Hannibal a number of times in the shorts is a mark against them, plus that double-sewn denim seam rubbing between his ass cheeks after being so thoroughly fucked is maybe more than he wants to put up with right now.

In the end, he decides on Hannibal’s own pajama pants. Not the cotton sateen ones, nor the lightweight Batik print ones, but the dove-gray silk knit pair that he suspects will drape _just so_ over his buttocks, thighs, and half-hard dick. That the legs are too long because Hannibal had them tailored for himself is slightly unfortunate, but their other qualities make up for it.

He sways down the stairs—or at least he _feels_ like that’s what he’s doing. The soft swish of the fabric as he walks makes him more aware of his own hips than usual. It’s kind of turning him on, and his cock gets harder in response.

Hannibal will most likely bring him back something to eat, or else try to persuade him to wait while he spends two or more hours whipping up a “simple” breakfast. But Will is famished _now_ , having burned through a considerable number of calories, so he goes to the fridge and shoves nearly an entire boiled potato into his mouth. Cold, lemony broth drips down his chin.

Of course this _had_ to be the precise moment that Hannibal returns from his walk with Cephi. Will looks up from the fridge, his cheeks as swollen as a peanut-hoarding chipmunk’s. “Umph, hey, you’re home early.” A bit of potato tumbles out of his mouth. Cephi darts in to gobble it up off the floor before trotting into the dining room to find her food bowl.

Hannibal holds up a small paper bag. “I brought you some chestnut cake. It verges on being nearly vulgar on the amount of rosemary, but the perfectly pan-toasted _pinoli_ are quite welcome.”

Will finishes madly chewing his potato and swallows as he takes the bag from Hannibal. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

“I always do,” Hannibal says. His gaze travels down the length of Will’s body. He licks his lips. “Mm. My clothes look good on you.”

Perhaps all is not lost yet! Like the pine nuts on a chestnut cake, the silk pants have provided an appetizing distraction.

Will regains his composure and gives Hannibal a sly smile. “I was looking for something soft after last night. You wore me out.” He runs one hand down his hip to gently cup his ass cheek.

“As I recall,” Hannibal says, eyeing every move of Will’s hand, “you wished to feel the lingering effects of our lovemaking.”

“I’m definitely _not_ complaining,” Will says.

Hannibal clears his throat and looks up. He smiles politely in that way that Will recognizes as Professionally Concerned Doctor.

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” Hannibal says brightly, “that we’ve begun our wager early.”

Will goggles at him. His hand freezes on his ass. “What? Why? I mean… _why_??”

“To give you time to heal,” Hannibal explains. “Rectal integrity is nothing to take lightly, Will. Your bare anus will thank us both.” 

_Oh shit._

Will feels a small spark of panic as the seductive thread he’s been weaving slips from his hands. He’s overplayed his tender asshole. What would Hannibal do if their situations were reversed?

_Regard everything—even misfortune—as an opportunity._

Will adopts a look of concern and hitches his thumbs into the waistband of his borrowed pants. He pulls them down just to the start of his freshly shampooed bush, pleased when Hannibal’s eyes follow the motion.

“Maybe you could take a look,” Will says. “ _Doctor_.”

Hannibal blinks and there’s a split second when he looks panicked, too. He quickly recovers and gives Will another polite smile. “Up on the exam table, then. I’ll need the better lighting to perform your checkup.”

Hannibal nods at the breakfast table behind him and Will almost pumps his fist in triumph.

He climbs up onto the table, taking care to move slowly and arch his back more than is strictly necessary. He lies down on his belly and rests his chin on the heel of his hand so he can see Hannibal over his shoulder.

“Lower your pants, please,” Hannibal says.

“Could you do it for me?” Will asks. “My arms are also pretty sore from holding myself up last night.” He raises his hips up off the table in invitation.

Hannibal sighs, but does what he’s asked, although he only moves the waistband down to Will’s upper thighs.

“Spread your legs,” Hannibal says. For all his self-control and restraint, there’s a noticeable thickness to his voice. “Please, Mr. Graham.”

Will obliges, and although it’s certainly not the first time he’s been ass-up on a table with Hannibal, he does feel more exposed than usual, somehow. Maybe it’s the pretense of clinical care. It’s… more than a little thrilling. He can feel the nerves under his skin sparking with awareness. His body feels instantly more sensitive. When Hannibal’s warm hands cup his buttocks and his thumbs spread him open wider, Will sucks in a sharp, shuddering breath.

Hannibal’s hands still. “Did that hurt?”

“Nuh uh,” Will says. “But maybe go slow... just in case.”

Hannibal bends down behind him, narrowing his eyes in concentration, and Will’s not sure he’s ever been simply _stared at_ so closely. Of course Hannibal has observed him, drunk him in with his eyes until he knew every pore of his body, but this is different. The condition of his asshole isn’t just being appreciated, but _judged_.

“H-how’s it look?” Will asks. Shit, he actually feels _shy_. Two years into their relationship! It strikes him as rather sexy and he has to keep reminding himself to focus. “Good? Bad?”

“Mildly inflamed,” Hannibal says. “Your lover was rough but worshipfully caring. Allow me to examine you for internal irritation?”

Will nods and makes an affirmative sound.

Hannibal disappears up the stairs and returns a few minutes later with lube (yes!), latex gloves (what!), and wearing one of Will’s running headbands to keep the hair out of his eyes.

“I guess this really _is_ a medical exam,” Will muses.

“Of course it is,” Hannibal says, snapping on a glove. “What else would it be?”

“Oh, nothing,” Will says. Hannibal slides one slippery finger into him. “Oh! _Ohhh_.”

“Does that hurt?” Hannibal asks.

“No, it feels—” _It feels amazing. Don’t stop. You’re almost to my prostate now._ “—fine. It’s fine. There’s a little tenderness. No pain. In fact, I’d be up for a roll in the hay if we weren’t sticking to our wager.” 

Just to drive the point home, he clenches and unclenches around Hannibal’s finger a few times.

Hannibal doesn’t take the bait, though, damn him.

But neither does he remove his finger, nor stop his slow, purposeful exploration of every inch inside him.

Will’s eyes roll up far enough that he can’t really see Hannibal anymore. He’s also starting to lose the power of speech. He opens his mouth to ask if this counts as a win, but only a needy little moan comes out. His cock, trapped between his body and the table, is starting to drip precome.

Hannibal takes a long, slow breath. “I’m afraid you’re becoming aroused. I can smell the sharpness of your desire… mixed with my perfume. If you climax now, is the loss yours? Or mine?”

 _Fuck_. That’s actually a good question, and Will has no idea what the answer is. No real rules or boundaries were established when they made the wager.

Will blinks a few times to settle his vision and halfway raises up to look at Hannibal.

Oh _fuck_.

He’s currently naked from the waist down and using his non-medical hand to slick his own asshole with lubricant. His hard cock juts out from beneath the hem of his shirt and his trousers are pooled around his ankles.

“Uh.” Will struggles for coherence. “Uh… I think it would be a tie.”

“Well, thank heaven for that,” Hannibal says, and joins Will on the table. He kicks his trousers off the rest of the way. “Lie on your back. I’m going to kneel astride you.”

Will wastes exactly zero seconds getting into the requested position. “What if we break the table?” he asks.

“I’ll pay for it along with the pergola,” Hannibal says.

Will, laughs, delighted. It’s not the same thing as hunting dragons together, but breaking furniture together isn’t unimpressive, either. 

Hannibal seats himself on Will’s cock, tilting his head a little to the right to avoid hitting the light fixture that hangs over the table. Will laughs at that, too, or starts to, but Hannibal makes a deep-throated sound of satisfaction and licks his lips.

“If I believed God was so inclined, I might think he made you just to fit me,” he says. “No lock and key were ever turned so perfectly.”

Will strokes Hannibal’s thighs, running his blunt nails through the hair to raise goosebumps on his skin. “Too busy dropping churches on elderly congregants, I suppose.”

Hannibal, his eyes still closed, gives Will a crooked smile. “You remember our old conversations.”

“I remember everything,” Will says. He gives Hannibal’s thighs a squeeze. “Now, move—before I lose my mind.” 

Hannibal shrugs out of his shirt and tosses it onto a chair. Will still marvels at how beautiful he is, even with his paler chest and tanned arms from playing tourist under the Tuscan sun. God, maybe even more so because of that. If Will is to be cast as the flowery ancient god of the hillside, then Hannibal is the human hunter he falls in love with. Soft and real, deceptively civilized on the surface. Deadly underneath.

When Hannibal opens his eyes, it’s to lean down and kiss Will. The angle raises his ass up just a little, and Will lifts his hips to thrust into him. Hannibal moans into his mouth, and Will repeats the motion. Again… again… softly at first, and then hard enough to jostle Hannibal and scrape their teeth together. The table creaks at its joints.

Will grabs Hannibal by the hips, steadying him so he doesn’t hit his head on the light fixture every time Will rams into him with enthusiasm.

The scent of rosemary grows expansive between them. Mysterious. Is it coming out in Hannibal’s sweat? He smells as if he’s been in the woods, running with his arms outstretched, being lashed by pines.

“Lean back,” Will says. “You can put your hands on my shins, or on the table.”

Hannibal assumes the position requested, and throws his head back, shaking the sweat from his hair. God, how he gleams. He shines from his flushed cheeks to his heaving chest. Will flattens his palms over Hannibal’s belly, then moves his right hand to encircle his swaying cock. He gives it a few strokes, sliding the velvety soft foreskin up and down, twisting his hand on every upstroke so that his thumb presses into the underside of Hannibal’s cock.

Hannibal bares his teeth and bites his lower lip hard enough to whiten it. 

Will shivers. “God, I love to watch your face when you’re close.”

Hannibal looks utterly pleased with himself. He takes over moving for Will, who can mostly just lie there as his thigh muscles give out and Hannibal grinds down in search of his own release.

Hannibal gasps as a look of something like pain crosses his features—a pleasure so intense he can hardly contain it. He groans, and the groan turns into a deep, breathy laugh. In the same instant, Will feels the hot pulses of his orgasm, coursing over his thumb and fingers, down his wrist, spattering the length of his forearm…

Will keeps stroking him through it, more lightly, knowing how sensitive Hannibal’s cock is now, but Hannibal puts his hand over Will’s, closing it tighter. He looks at Will, meeting his eyes with a ferocious gleam.

“Oh—” Will nearly chokes on his own breath. It’s always something of a shock when he comes inside Hannibal, even as many times as it’s happened over the last two years. Feeling his own slick heat pulsing out of him, surrounding him, wrapped in Hannibal’s body, so slippery-wet that it’s impossible to tell where one skin ends and another begins.

Hannibal’s movements slow, and his thighs tremble with the strain, but he doesn’t still completely until Will tugs him down onto the table to lie beside him.

“Oh God,” Will says. He laughs. “That was… very… _thorough_.”

Hannibal reaches for Will’s arm so he can use it as a headrest. “Too thorough? Are you all right?”

Will concentrates for a bit, checking in with his body. There are all the usual little twinges he’s used to from all his various injuries over the years, but there’s also something new.

“My back hurts a little. Hang on.” He reaches under his lower back and finds the paper bag from the bakery, now hopelessly crushed. Cake crumbs and pignoli tumble out from all the places the bag is torn. “You know, I _thought_ I smelled rosemary.”

Hannibal snorts and laughs at the same time. “I don’t know why I find that so amusing, darling Will. Perhaps it’s my good mood at having won our wager.”

Will drops the bag. “You did not! We agreed it was a tie. Also, if anyone won, it was me. _You_ rode _me_ like it was a dressage competition and you came in first place! And I mean you _literally_ came first.”

“Our wager was who could resist the other the longest,” Hannibal reminds him. “You couldn’t resist _making_ me come first.”

Will shakes his head and sits up. “That-that doesn’t even make sense. It makes even less sense than leaning in closer to smell me because you thought I reeked. ‘Difficult to avoid,’ my ass.”

Hannibal gives a great, deep sigh and shrugs as if beleaguered to his core. “Then I suppose we’ll have to resume our wager, and start anew. It’s hardly a win if we can’t agree on the outcome.”

“Fine,” Will agrees. He looks down at his sticky, crumb-coated torso. He resembles a catfish fillet ready for the deep fryer. “But you’re making us breakfast first.”

* * *

In the morning, Cephi is sprawled out on her back beside him, snoring softly where normally Hannibal would be lying. A note tucked under her ear promises that she’s already been walked and fed.

Will listens to the house for a few minutes but doesn’t hear Hannibal anywhere close by. No smells coming from the kitchen, either. Has he gone out? Hard to imagine without the dog.

“Where’s your favorite human?” he asks as if she’s going to answer. She just keeps snoring and twitches her feet in some mysterious dream.

He gives her belly a quick rub and shoves his feet into his slippers before heading downstairs. It’s a bit chilly for the first time since they’ve arrived in the comune of Scarperia y San Piero, and the light filtering in through the windows has a soft, grayish cast to it. He assumes Hannibal’s point of view in order to focus his senses and picks up on the fuzzy, almost electric smell of rain.

No, not rain. Just a mist that’s threatening to become rain. A gray veil hiding the sun. 

He gets his blackwatch flannel robe from the closet and goes downstairs, heading towards the kitchen. Before he gets there, he finds a few molecules of candle wax in the air, like a wispy finger curling towards him, beckoning him closer.

He follows the scent to the downstairs bedroom, where the door is closed but amber light can be seen in a sliver over the threshold. There is music, too, barely audible… something with harps that sounds like water pouring over the rims of bells. The scent of candle wax is notably stronger now, but it’s not perfumed. No added mixtures of sandalwood or vanilla or muskiness. Instead, he smells…

“Old Spice?” he asks himself in a befuddled whisper.

“Will?” It’s Hannibal from inside the bedroom. “Is the music too loud? Did I wake you?”

“Can I come in?” Will asks. He can’t imagine why he couldn’t, but it still seems proper to ask. “Are you… uh… busy?”

“I am busy, in a way,” Hannibal says. “But of course you may enter, Will.”

When he opens the door, he receives such a jolt to the senses that it almost feels like a physical slap to his entire body at once. Of course there are the candles—seemingly hundreds, but it’s probably more like a dozen—and there’s harp music coming from _somewhere_ , but thankfully not from actual harpists sitting _in the room_ with Hannibal, because, holy shit, he is _buck naked_ and propped up on a pile of pillows on the floor like it’s a harem and he is _languidly_ but _very obviously_ stroking his wet, half-hard cock. 

Will’s nostrils flare involuntarily. The tang of semen is all around him, under the thickness of the candle wax. Hannibal has already ejaculated. At least once.

“What—” Will starts to ask, and discovers that his brain has given up. Not only is it overloaded from everything he’s seen and smelled, but his blood is rapidly traveling in a southward direction. He just gestures around the room.

Hannibal raises his brows and looks around, too, as if Will could’ve been referring to anything other than his luxurious hand job.

“Oh!” Hannibal nods. “Yes, I awoke rather erect and thought I’d better tend to matters in private, for the sake of the integrity of the wager.”

“But—” Will fights to find language again. It’s like clawing his way out of quicksand. “But it’s like a spa in here! And why does it smell like Old Spice?”

“Masturbation is a gift one gives one’s self,” Hannibal says. All the while, he continues lazily stroking himself. “Like cooking a three-course meal for nobody else, or imbibing a rare and beautiful wine unshared. Why wouldn’t I treat my arousal with just as sybaritic a regard? Arousal is an appetite in itself.”

Will would roll his eyes if they weren’t currently stuck in place, staring at the glossy pink head of Hannibal’s cock slipping in and out of its lighter foreskin. 

“As for the aftershave,” Hannibal goes on. “I wanted to smell like you, just as you wanted to smell like me. Would you like a lesson on how I achieved my first orgasm this morning? Feel free to take notes for your own educational purposes.”

Now Will _does_ manage to roll his eyes, broken out of his trance by the sheer force of Hannibal’s hubris.

“I know how to get myself off, Hannibal.” He rolls his eyes again for good measure. “You’ve seen me do it literally a hundred times.”

“As an act of harmony in the symphony of our lovemaking,” Hannibal says. “You’ve used your hands while seated on my cock, or while I take you from behind. I’ve never seen you masturbate _a cappella_ , from start to finish, nor have you seen me.”

That gives Will pause. Have they really never seen each other jerk off just for the sake of jerking off? In two whole years? He stands there blinking for a full minute, trying to recall any past instance. Something about this feels treacherous, and he knows he’s a fool for going any further. A horny goddamn fool.

“What about our wager?” Will asks.

“We shall remain on opposite sides of the room,” Hannibal says. He holds out the bottle of lube. “Here, take this and a few pillows for yourself.”

“And this has no effect on our wager?” Will asks.

“So long as neither of us wantonly descends upon the other in a fit of unrequited passion,” Hannibal says. He even makes a little “x” gesture over his heart to seal the promise. His eyes shimmer with angelic innocence.

Will knows he’s screwed, but he takes the pillows and the lube and flings his robe to the floor.

“Now I’m going to take you to church,” Hannibal says. “It’s time for morning worship.”

He joins Hannibal in his memory palace as the description of a thirteenth century church unfolds like a tapestry sewn by careful and loving hands.

In Sabina, outside the boisterous din of the city of Rome, there are secret hills covered with olive trees. Some of them are grown thick, huddled together in a conspiratorial pact to keep the Sanctuary of Santa Vittoria to themselves. Their gnarled wood is the same color as the ancient stone used to build the church, and both are grown over with mosses and crossed thousands of times every day by glimmering beetles and faithful dragonflies that know no difference between them.

Beneath the church lies the body of Santa Vittoria, as hidden by the stone as the church is by the trees.

“The story of her miracle has her killing a dragon in the third century,” Hannibal says. They are in the bedroom in Scarperia as well as standing before the roughly carved doors of the church. “This was built a millennium later, and recently gifted with stained glass for its windows all in the colors of the nearby Tyrrhenian Sea.”

The windows materialize before Will, constructed in an instant in his mind’s eye.

Hannibal goes on. “At the Tyrrhenian’s deepest, the colors plunge into a dark gray-blue like your eyes, and at its brightest it is the twin of the cloudless sky above it. You could blind yourself with the shocking beauty of it.”

As they step inside the church, it’s as if they’ve walked out onto the floor of the sea. The early morning light pierces the different segments of blue glass, each no bigger than the nails on his fingers, and the shadows cast by the lead soldering holding them together look like rippling waves. The overall sensation is so deeply aquatic that Will has to take a breath to remind himself that he’s not underwater.

Hannibal stands beside him in the church, in the aisle between the rows of antique oak pews. Even though he’s not looking directly at Will, the glint of mischief in Hannibal’s eyes is apparent.

“This is where you want us to get married,” Will guesses.

“It has crossed my mind as an appropriate place,” Hannibal says. 

“I would have thought you’d want the Capella Palatina,” Will says.

Hannibal shrugs. “Our past is there. This is a new place, for us both.” Now he looks at Will. “What are you wearing?”

The question, seemingly a non sequitur, confuses him for a moment. “Why’s that important?”

“Because I want to know what to picture when you undress,” Hannibal says.

Will looks down at himself and blinks in surprise. Without consciously conjuring it, he’s wearing the same clothes he wore the night they were at the bluff house. “The white shirt when we killed the Dragon,” he says. He looks up at Hannibal, who is now wearing the sweater and jacket from that night, too. “Santa Vittoria’s influence, I suppose. All who enter here must be prepared to kill the beast.”

“Another miracle from beyond her tomb,” Hannibal says. “Now, take it off.”

Will unbuttons his shirt and drops it onto the pew beside him. The shifting blue light on his bare skin feels so cool that it makes him shiver.

“Your trousers, too,” Hannibal instructs him.

“Are you watching me undress?” Will asks. “Here, in our shared space?”

“You tell me,” Hannibal says, turning towards him in the church.

“You’re watching me,” Will says. “You’re mirroring me, like the sky and the sea.”

Hannibal takes off his jacket, pulls the sweater up over his belly and then over his head before letting it join Will’s pile of clothes. His body is a warm magnet, and Will leans into it. God, he smells so good. So good. Will closes his eyes and breathes him in, nuzzling into the join of his neck and shoulder. He lifts up his head to kiss the underside of Hannibal’s jaw, grown rough with stubble.

“If you raise one leg,” Hannibal says, “and reach behind yourself, and press inside yourself with your thumb, it will feel as if I’m there instead.”

Will begins the movement in the bedroom and Hannibal completes it in the church. Will moans in both places at once.

He’s missed having Hannibal’s fingers inside him. It’s only been a few days! Yet he pushes back against the imagined sensation, craving deeper contact. Longing and hunger aren’t so different from one another, and he’s been starving for this.

Hannibal bends him over the pew and kneels behind him as if in prayer. “Do you feel my breath hot against your skin?” he asks, voice barely more than a whisper, but so obscenely loud in the church. “Can you feel my lips touching you as I speak?”

Will nods, then realizes he doesn’t know if Hannibal can see him. “Yes,” he says. “And yes.” He’s never been so glad to have such a powerful imagination.

Hannibal alternates with his thumbs and his tongue, lavishing his cleft and hole with with a worship so vocal and fervent that the saints would be torn in calling it either holy or profane. They wouldn’t be able to avert their eyes.

Will feels weak with want, drunk and hedonistic. He’s floating above the seafloor, rising to the church altar, writhing on the pillows on the floor in their rented house in Scarperia. He’s being touched in so many layers of reality at once that it’s almost more than he can bear.

“I want you to sit here in the pew,” Hannibal says. “Spread your legs wide apart. Make your free hand slick and stroke yourself for me. That’s my mouth on you.”

Will, dimly aware that he’s in the bedroom and pouring more lube into his hand, blinks and lands back in the church. Hannibal is kneeling on the floor in front of him, head bowed like a penitent’s, not asking for recognition of his sins but holding them all in his mouth as he swallows Will’s cock.

With a gasp, Will braces his right foot on the back of the pew in front of him. 

He thinks back to every time Hannibal has used his mouth on him, remembers the way Hannibal likes to lick the underside of his cockhead, and tries to make his hand approximate the same gesture. But that’s where the illusion begins to fall apart.

He summons every atom of the power of his imagination and uses them to reconstruct Hannibal here between his legs in this ancient church. He can smell the moss on the stones, and the oily soap used to clean the pews, and the thick wax of the candles burning on the altar, and feel the wood creaking beneath him as he bucks his hips, and the cool of the Tyrrhenian Sea rippling over him in schools of undulating waves…

But his hand, as good as it feels, is not Hannibal’s mouth, and he can’t make it so, no matter how hard he tries.

He cries out in frustration. 

The church vanishes. 

He blinks, bleary-eyed, and is only in the bedroom, with one hand straining for his prostate and the other furiously twisting at his aching cock. 

“Do you need me?” Hannibal asks, already crawling across the floor towards him.

“Yes,” Will says.

“Tell me what you need.”

“Your mouth.”

Hannibal smiles and maybe it’s the influence of the church they just visited, but it’s as beatific a smile as Will has ever seen. All he needs is a gilded halo and a heavenly beam of light to set it ablaze. Honestly, Will is just a little bit infuriated, but he has nobody to blame but himself this time. He knew it was a trap and he walked right into it with his dick first.

“Take your hands away,” Hannibal instructs.

Will stops trying to make himself come, and Hannibal quickly but gently uses the hem of Will’s discarded robe to wipe the lube off his cock. The flannel, normally soft against his skin, feels almost unbearably rough now that he’s so excruciatingly sensitive. He bites his lower lip and curls his toes to keep from jumping at the contact.

Hannibal kneels before him and bows his head as he did in the church. He gives a happy sigh and takes a deep, slow breath before swallowing Will’s cock to the hilt.

This time, Will can’t keep himself from jolting. “Ah, God!” Hannibal lays one hand across his belly, where their scar is, and anchors him down. The steady weight of that touch, and Hannibal’s nearness, brings him back to his body. He runs his hand through Hannibal’s hair and tilts his head back just enough to see his eyes looking up at him.

“Let’s go back to church,” Will says.

He adds back the layers of their shared memory palace, one by one. First he brings back the ancient olive trees and nestles the stone sanctuary back amid them, with the soft, perfect light of morning, and the smell of the world waking up around them. Then he adds back the rows of pews and the altar and the stained glass all in the shades of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The waves dance over their naked bodies.

This time, the mouth so lovingly sucking him from root to dip and making _the_ most pleased little wet kissing sounds is truly Hannibal’s, and not his own hand trying in vain to pass itself off as something more.

Will drapes his arms over the back of the pew. He digs his fingers into the wood, trying to hold off for as long as he can. His breathing is loud and ragged in the stillness of the church, pierced by shuddering imperatives of “more” and “don’t stop.” His confessions are the sounds of his blatant need. 

He’s _so close_ , and he thinks to warn Hannibal, who prefers he not come down his throat, as he loses the taste of him that way, but of course Hannibal can feel it, and knows the precise moment to pull back and let Will come all over his tongue and lips. God, it’s a beautiful sight, seeing him with his mouth as red as fresh strawberries, and shining wet all the way down his chin. Hannibal wipes it away with the pad of his thumb, then sucks it clean like he’s been given a treat.

Hannibal gently pushes him down, lays him out on the pew and spreads him open.

“May I?” he asks.

Will nods deliriously. “Mm.”

As Hannibal slowly fucks him, Will happens to see the church ceiling above them, except it’s the glittering blue Tyrrhenian Sea. He can see their reflection in its dappled surface, see himself gracelessly sprawled out with his arms and legs everywhere, and Hannibal’s head still bowed as he moves and moves and moves… His shoulders are broad and his pale hips so slim as they rhythmically thrust into him. Will wonders what it would take to get this precise image frescoed into the ceiling, and if Santa Vittoria would mind.

He laughs soundlessly at the thought, then gasps as Hannibal fills him to the point of spilling. 

He clings to Hannibal through the slowing of his movements, wrapping his arms around those shoulders and his legs around those miraculous hips. He watches himself kissing Hannibal’s sweaty brow, his cheeks and the curves of his ears.

He frowns and blinks up at the ceiling, coming back to earth in Scarperia.

“Did… did you know there’s a mirror on the ceiling?”

“I put it there,” Hannibal says. He rolls off Will and takes a few moments to catch his breath. “You mentioned the other night as we were falling asleep that you might like to see a different perspective on our lovemaking.”

Will nods. He’s too spent to sit up and wave his arms in victory, or he’d do just that. “So, by the way, I win our wager.”

Hannibal sits up halfway. “I don’t see how you win. You practically begged me to take you.”

Will scoffs. “ _You_ couldn’t resist asking _me_ if I needed you. As I recall, you promised to stay on your side of the room, and yet you crawled over here to me, drooling like a starving man at a buffet, and ‘wantonly descended’ upon me.”

“Don’t demean either of us by comparing yourself to a buffet, Will.”

Will elbows him in the side. “Am I wrong?”

Hannibal lifts his chin with a small pout. “I’m willing to concede a tie—”

“Hah!”

“—but only if you let me tidy up first.”

Will furrows his brow, not entirely certain—or at all certain—what Hannibal means by that. He shrugs. “I... suppose that’s fine?”

With that, Hannibal slides over onto his side and hikes Will’s left leg up over his shoulder. He settles in with his face centered at Will’s asshole and begins to lick him clean from the underside of his balls to the end of his crack. 

Will moans his approval and tangles his hand in Hannibal’s hair, and casts his eyes heavenward to watch the show above him.

* * *

It’s been three days since the last time they came to a draw in their wager, and Will feels like a tiger pacing in a cage. He goes for runs around the comune twice daily and beats off in the shower each time he gets back home. But, as he discovered in their imagined church meeting, getting himself off doesn’t bring him nearly the same satisfaction as being with Hannibal. He’s crackling with pent up energy. At this point, he’s pretty sure he could bust through a wall with his dick if Hannibal were on the other side.

“You seem agitated lately,” Hannibal says as they’re eating dinner. “Does this mean you’re ready to admit defeat?”

Will jabs a leaf of wilted lacinato kale into his mouth and chews it like he’s trying to murder it. “Nope. I’m fine. Totally fine. You’re the one who seems agitated, in fact.”

Hannibal eats a forkful of ham with just as much vigor. His knuckles as he holds his fork are white. “I’m not agitated. What makes you think I’m agitated?”

“You haven’t slept since you moved into the spare room,” Will says. “I’ve been hearing that harp music all night, every night, so I know you must be rubbing yourself raw. Thinking about me. Wishing it were me. Maybe _you_ should admit defeat.”

“I do wish it were you,” Hannibal says. He puts down his fork. Will instantly recalls seeing the same expression of regret and longing when Hannibal came to visit him at the BSHCI. “I wish you were sleeping beside me. I can’t rest without you.”

Will reaches across the table and tugs on Hannibal's shirt cuff. “Come back to our room, then.”

“You’ll just try to seduce me again,” Hannibal says.

Will rolls his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake!” He goes back to eating his salad, but he can't enjoy it. “If I promise not to seduce you, will you start sleeping in the bed with me again?”

Hannibal appears to mull it over. “Perhaps it would help to define what, exactly, is off-limits.”

“Sex,” Will says with a shrug.

“But what counts as sexual intercourse?” Hannibal asks.

“Penetration?”

“Too simplistic,” Hannibal says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Patriarchal and old-fashioned. More inclusively, we could define making one another orgasm as sex.”

Will perks up for the first time in days. “So we could theoretically still make out.”

“Dangerous for more than one reason,” Hannibal says after some thought. “The first is that we’re both incredible kissers—possibly to the point of arousing one another to climax. The second? One small temptation leads to another, and another. And another.”

“We could kiss our way right into fucking,” Will concludes.

“Precisely.”

“Not to mention it would be torture,” Will says.

“Sweet torture,” Hannibal corrects him.

Will holds out his right hand. “We’ll just sleep in the same bed and not turn into mindless, rutting animals. Deal? We managed to go without sex when you were in Santiago.”

“Deal,” Hannibal agrees, taking Will’s hand to shake on it.

_Oh shit. Oh no._

Will feels that instant spark of electricity that he’s only ever felt with Hannibal, that familiarity and awareness that they know exactly what the other is thinking and feeling. A handshake should absolutely _not_ be a wake-up call to his dick, and yet it is. Hannibal looks mildly stricken, too, as he experiences the same shock to his system.

Will drops Hannibal’s hand and pushes away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Hannibal asks.

“For a run!” Will says, already halfway out the door. “For yet another run!”

“It’s nearly ten!” Hannibal calls after him. “And you’re wearing flip-flops!”

Will ignores him and speeds off into the night with his sandals slapping noisily against the cobblestones, hoping against hope that he’ll exhaust himself before it’s time to go to bed.

* * *

With Cephi at a highly rated pet hotel for some pampering, they decide to spend the day at a family farm in the Chianti Classico region.

With most of the tourism coming in the fall for the grape and olive harvests, several smaller farms have adjusted for year-round _agriturismo_. While Will drives, Hannibal peruses their destination’s brochure. He excitedly points out the offerings that he finds interesting. 

“You might enjoy learning about the antique machinery they still use in the mill,” Hannibal says. “And look—a tour and analysis of all the subtly different soil types on the property. I think that would appeal to our mutual interest in forensics. We can end the day with a cooking class taught by the family matriarch. She’s ninety-four and still makes bread every day. I’d love to get her recipe.”

Will reaches for Hannibal’s hand and kisses his knuckles. It’s the only kiss he’s allowed himself in days, and he quickly lets go again before he can get himself worked up again. Even in his touristy disguise of salmon pink capri pants and rumpled linen shirt, Hannibal looks unfairly handsome and endlessly kissable.

They’re greeted at the farmhouse on the estate by a plump man in his sixties with steel-gray hair and bright green eyes. He’s smiling from ear to ear and claps their shoulders in a big hug as if he’s known them for years.

“Welcome to my family’s estate,” he says. “I’m Domenico Buonomo, but you can call me Dom or Zio Dom—we’re all friends now! Right? Of course! Carlino!”

A tall young man breaks away from a small group of visitors in the garden and comes bounding over. His dark hair is wild, and he keeps smoothing it back with his hands to no avail. He has the same complexion and bright green eyes as Domenico and wears a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and suspenders holding up his dark brown trousers. He looks for all the world as if he’s just walked out of the pages of an E.M. Forster story in search of a privileged but headstrong young woman to fall in love with. No doubt he would be successful.

“Carlino—” Domenico turns back towards them. “I apologize, but I didn’t even ask your names!”

“I’m Owen,” Will says. 

“Alvar,” Hannibal says, shaking hands with the young man. 

“Carlino, get our guests some maps and itineraries,” Domenico starts again. “Or if they prefer to explore on their own, make sure they have everything they need.”

“Oh, don’t go to any trouble for me,” Will says. “I thought I’d just wander around and enjoy this beautiful scenery.”

“I’d like an itinerary,” Hannibal says, but young Carlino is staring fixedly at Will. He’s exceedingly pretty, but Will’s not exactly in the market for exceedingly pretty. “May I have an itinerary?”

Carlino blinks and his cheeks flush as red as if he’d gotten a sudden sunburn. “Of course! Sorry! Un momento, per favore!” He bows his head at Will and runs off towards the farmhouse.

A terrible thought begins to foment in Will’s mind as he watches the young farmer's departure. He promised he would stop trying to seduce Hannibal, but he made no such promise against seducing anyone else. He bites his lip to keep from smiling and giving himself away.

“Something amusing?” Hannibal asks.

“I just decided I’d rather go on the scheduled tour with you,” Will says. “That’s all!”

***

The day starts with a tasting of olive oils from the family’s own orchard, pressed right there at the mill that’s been in operation for over a century. A woman about his age offers them thin slices of toasted bread with some kind of dark, leafy vegetable on top, but Hannibal prefers to taste the oils on their own.

Periodically, Carlino pops in to check with the woman—Will gathers she’s an employee rather than a relation—and to ask her if she needs anything. After the third such intrusion to her part of the tour, she throws up her hands and starts to shoo him away.

“Charlie, stop being such a pest!” she says, and if she had a broom she would swat his perky little behind with it. "What's gotten into you today?"

Carlino—or Charlie, or whatever his name is—eventually leaves, but not before casting a shy smile in Will’s direction.

Will glances at Hannibal, but he seems not to have noticed. He’s entirely absorbed in the tiny cups of murky green oils. Damn it.

The rest of the tour has them visiting the mill, the gardens, and the vineyards. Carlino/Charlie beams with pride as he talks about growing the Sangiovese and Syrah grapes and how his father taught him to taste little pinches of soil to analyze how the fertilizers should be adjusted. 

“It’s better than a laboratory analysis,” he declares. “As long as you have a very talented and experienced tongue!”

Most of the women in the group laugh and fawn over him, jostling for position to be nearer to him. Even as they try to cling to him, though, he manages to break away and approach Will.

“Did you enjoy my part of the tour, signore?”

“You were very educational,” Will says. “You _and_ your tongue.”

He flutters his lashes at Will. “I didn’t mean to sound so… _sessuale_. Something just… ah… came over me.”

“What’s your name?” Will asks. Hannibal is crouched under a grapevine nearby, poking his fingers into the dry layer of topsoil. He glances over at Will and narrows his eyes. “I’ve heard different people calling you Carlino and Charlie.”

“You’ve been paying attention to me?” He grins, showing slightly crooked but bright white teeth. He wipes the smile mostly off his face and glances down at his feet. “Or perhaps you just happened to notice.”

“I was paying attention,” Will says.

“My name is Carlino,” the young man says, plainly relieved to hear Will's admission. “My family calls me that. The other workers and my friends call me Charlie because that’s what I _want_ my name to be, when I move to America. I’m going to be an actor! Carlino Buonomo is becoming Charlie Goodman, you see?”

Will shakes his head and makes a gently pitying sound with his tongue against his teeth. “Charlie Goodman is anybody, or nobody,” he says. He holds out his hand, waiting for Carlino to take it, and turns his palm up to study. He touches the calluses there, and traces them with his fingers as if he’s reading his fortune. Carlino exhales sharply. “Charlie didn’t heft the grapes in these hands, feeling them for their ripeness… Charlie didn’t rake through the soil with these fingers, pulling out grubs one by one before they could damage the roots—Carlino did. _You_ did. Carlino has the terroir of these vineyards inside him. Charlie… doesn’t taste like anything the way Carlino does.” He doesn’t let go of Carlino’s hand.

“Oh, signore,” Carlino breathes. His eyes are half-closed and glassy with lust. His pulse beats visibly in the hollow of his ruddy throat. The poor thing is so smitten, so quickly and so easily. He would probably drop to his knees at this very moment, in front of everyone, if Will asked him to. “Y-you make my head spin, the way you talk. I don’t know what to think.”

Will watches Hannibal over Carlino’s shoulder. He’s standing now, tearing a leaf off the vine and crushing it in his fingers as if it had personally wronged him, but his expression is deadly calm as he meets Will’s eyes.

“How old are you?” Will asks.

“Twenty-three,” Carlino answers a little too quickly. Will cocks an eyebrow at him and Carlino looks down at the hand that Will is still holding. “I-I’ll be twenty-three in September, I mean. I’m twenty-two, signore.”

Will sighs. “I barely remember being so young. You must enjoy your youth while you can.”

Carlino swallows hard, gathering up his nerve. He’s being _terribly_ brave, and Will has given him every reason to be. “Would… would you like to go for a walk with me? There are quiet places around the vineyards, here and there. Good places to talk or to… _not_ talk? Help me enjoy my youth.”

God, he looks so hopeful. He licks his lips and holds his breath waiting for an answer.

Will looks over at Hannibal again. There is murder in his eyes, and it’s thrilling to see. He could tear Carlino apart with his hands, twist his neck until he dropped silently to the ground. He could rip out this unfortunate young man’s throat with his teeth. The way a shark lowers its fins when it’s hunting, the muscles in Hannibal’s arms tense, and his shoulders square up, ready to launch an attack. Il Mostro is alive and well and _hungry._

“Signore?” 

Hannibal stalks towards them.

Will looks at Carlino again. He’s only had the bad luck to cross paths with a bad man. His eyes, as green as the olive oil from his family’s orchards, are so painfully hopeful. Will lets go of his hand.

“I’m afraid my fiance wouldn’t approve,” he says.

“Approve of what?” Hannibal asks, his tone deceptively light.

Carlino’s mouth falls open and the color drains from his lovely face. He looks back and forth from Will to Hannibal several times. He takes a hasty step backwards, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“I-I thought you were perhaps his uncle,” Carlino says to Hannibal. Will has to press his lips together to keep from laughing aloud. “Like Zio Dom is to me.... Uncle Domenico. I didn’t know… I didn’t know. _Scusi_... pardon me. I must rejoin the tour.”

He bows his head weakly at Hannibal, but avoids looking at Will again before he turns on his heel and jogs away from them.

“Ah, poor kid,” Will sighs. “I think I broke his heart.”

“My cunning Will,” Hannibal says in a low voice. “You promise not to try to seduce me, so you do it by proxy. I was right to call you the god of the hillside. Gods are as cruel and capricious as they are giving and beautiful.”

Instead of feeling insulted, Will feels triumphant. His pulse quickens. He moves a step closer to Hannibal. He doesn’t kiss him, but he leans in near enough that Hannibal can feel his breath against his neck.

“What do you want to do about me?” he asks.

“What _should_ I do?” Hannibal asks in return.

There’s a long pause as they silently stare one another down, challenging, weighing the possibility of deceit. Will wonders if it will count as a loss if he’s the one to tell Hannibal what he wants done to him.

He gives Hannibal a small smile. “You _could_ take me somewhere quiet,” he says, leaving the choice up to Hannibal. He glances around at the few tourists still making their way toward the farmhouse. “Some place where prying eyes won’t see?”

If Hannibal has any suspicions about his word choice, he doesn’t seem to care, as he grabs Will’s hand and pulls him even closer.

Will finds himself backed into the shabbily painted wall of the shed, with the length of Hannibal’s body holding him in place. He throws back his head and _now_ come the kisses—entire bouquets of them planted all up and down his throat and the line of his jaw and his shoulder where Hannibal has to pull back the collar of his shirt to reach his skin. Hannibal sucks bruising little kisses all along his clavicles, while Will moans shapeless sounds of encouragement.

Hannibal holds a finger to his lips. “Do you want the whole family to come running? Break your young farmhand’s heart all over again.”

Will lightly bites the tip of Hannibal's finger. “Better think of a way to keep my mouth occupied, then.”

Hannibal glances around to make sure they’re alone, and pulls Will to the ground with him. There are tufts of tall grasses growing up against the wall of the potting shed, and orange poppies straining for the sun. Hannibal holds Will’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply, and slowly, tasting him as if for the first time, or as if it had been years instead of days since their last kiss. Will tastes the grains of minerals still on Hannibal’s tongue… just slightly salty and metallic, because the soil still holds the long-ago memory of the sea and the volcanoes where they first formed. 

Every time Will thinks to say something, Hannibal takes the words away from him with a kiss. 

They lie on their sides, clutched to one another, as still as they can possibly be so they don’t disturb the poppies and reveal their hiding spot. They don’t even move their hips or sneak their hands into one another’s trousers. They simply kiss, and breathe together, and hold each other so closely and so tightly that Will can feel Hannibal’s thudding heartbeat, and is certain Hannibal can feel his, too.

The sky above them cycles through its palette of colors, from the blue and gold of late afternoon, to the reddish veil of sunset that isn’t so different from looking through one’s eyelids at a light and seeing the rosy silhouette of the fine capillaries there.

It takes Will by surprise to feel that familiar pressure mounting low in his belly. Until this very moment, he hadn’t been aware that he even had an erection, so intense was his focus on Hannibal’s seemingly endless kisses. His breath catches, as does Hannibal’s, and he feels that flood of relief that comes from finally reaching a long sought-after orgasm. It’s not explosive… it doesn’t shatter his brain or overwhelm his senses, but it seems to go on for a long, long while. When he sees stars, it’s because actual stars have begun dotting the night sky. 

He looks at Hannibal and they both break into expressions of wonder.

“Did you just…” Will reaches down between them and finds the front of both their trousers wet and sticky and rapidly cooling.

“Only from our kisses,” Hannibal confirms.

Will laughs, then immediately lowers his voice. “I kind of thought you were joking when you said we might make each other come just from kissing.”

“So did I,” Hannibal admits.

They slowly, with limbs falling asleep from being held still for so long, untangle from one another. Hannibal is the first one to get to his feet, and holds out his hands to help Will up. 

Arm in arm, they stumble across the garden towards the small parking lot on the other side farmhouse. Most of the other tourists still seem to be there, gathered in the kitchen. Rich smells of olives and grilled fish and fresh bread emanate from the open windows. Will thinks it's almost enough to tempt him to join the crowd inside, if not for the big, wet stain on the crotch of his pants. It's also not worth crossing paths with Carlino again, just in case there's no escaping Il Mostro a second time.

"You missed the matriarch's bread recipe," Will says.

"Zio Dom told me it's on their website," Hannibal says. 

As they get back into their car and head down the road to pick up their girl from the pet hotel, Will tries to sort out the details from the rest of the day. Technically speaking, by the boundaries they defined, they _did_ have sex today, even if they remained fully clothed and only their lips touched. But who gave in to whom first?

"I think today was another tie," Will finally says.

"So you're not willing to admit defeat?" Hannibal asks.

"Far from it," Will scoffs. "You?"

"Hadn't crossed my mind," Hannibal says.

"Good," Will says, reaching over to squeeze Hannibal's thigh. "Then the wager continues."

(Coming soon: Part two, from Hannibal's point of view!)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter titles:
> 
> l'origine della scommessa: the origin of the wager  
> rosmarino e profumo: rosemary and perfume  
> andare in chiesa: going to church  
> i confini: the boundaries  
> buon uomo: good man
> 
> Thank you as always to my co-conspirator and benefactor Shukkhy for screaming with me about these idiot cannibals in love.


End file.
